360Marie and Pierre Curie discover polonium and radium
In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie discovered two new radioactive elements in Paris: polonium in July, named after Marie's homeland Poland, and radium in December. Marie Curie coined the word 'radioactivity'. She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903, and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences.
In 1896, Henri Becquerel found that uranium gave off mysterious rays. Marie Skłodowska Curie, a young Polish scientist working in Paris, chose to study them for her doctorate.
She found that a uranium ore called pitchblende was more active than uranium alone, so it must contain unknown elements. Her husband Pierre joined her research.
In July 1898 they announced polonium, and in December radium. To prove radium existed, they processed tonnes of ore in a draughty shed, and in 1902 isolated a tenth of a gram of radium chloride.
Marie and Pierre Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Becquerel. After Pierre's death in 1906, Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Radioactivity transformed physics and medicine, though its dangers were not understood, and her notebooks are still radioactive.
- 1896
- Becquerel discovers radioactivity in uranium
- July 1898
- Polonium is announced
- December 1898
- Radium is announced
- 1903
- Nobel Prize in Physics
- 1911
- Marie Curie's Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Sources: NobelPrize.org · Musée Curie · Britannica.